After a comedian at his rally on Sunday at New York’s Madison Square Garden caused outrage by calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage”, the Trump campaign is in damage control mode.
The remarks spurred a furious response from the Puerto Rican community both in the US territory and across the nation, as well as among the wider Latino community.
Prominent Puerto Ricans, including Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, and Ricky Martin, were quick to respond with endorsements of Kamala Harris and statements condemning the slur.
Others recalled the Trump administration’s poor response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017 which devastated the island, forever embodied by the then-president throwing paper towels to people lining up for supplies in the aftermath.
With large Puerto Rican communities in key swing states, Trump was forced to address the racist joke on the campaign trail on Tuesday.
ABC’s senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott asked the former president about comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s performance.
“I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is,” Trump told her, before insisting that he did not hear the comments that have incensed many in the the Latino community.
News organizations have repeatedly played a clip of the comedian’s comments since Sunday night and it was probably the most widely discussed element of the Madison Square Garden rally.
Scott pushed Trump about what he made of the remarks but rather than denouncing them, repeated that he had not heard them.
Later in the day, Trump claimed at a rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania: “I’ve done more for Puerto Rico than any president by far. Nobody close.”
Given the disastrous hurricane response, this was an odd boast. Nevertheless, Puerto Rico’s shadow US Senator Zoraida Buxo joined him on stage and defended the former president’s record.
“We need this man to be our commander-in-chief,” she said. “He will make us feel safe and he will protect us.”
The hyperbole got odder still during an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News when the former president said: “Every time I go outside I see somebody from Puerto Rico. They give me a hug and a kiss.”
Hannity asked Trump about the comedian, adding that he wasn’t aware if the former president was at the rally when he had performed.
Trump responded: “I have no idea who he is. Someone said there was a comedian who joked about Puerto Rico or something and I have no idea who he is. Never saw him. Never heard of him. And don’t want to hear of him.”
He continued: “I have no idea, they put a comedian in, everybody does, you throw comedians in, you don’t vet them and go crazy, it’s nobody’s fault. But, somebody said some bad things. What they’ve done is taken, somebody who has nothing to do with the party, has nothing to do with us, said something, and they try and make a big deal. I don’t even know who put him in, and I can’t imagine it’s a big deal.”
Harris’s campaign was quick to jump on that final remark, with Harris spokesperson Sarafina Chitika posting: “Puerto Rican communities across the country are mobilizing against Trump after his speaker called the island a ‘floating pile of garbage’.”
She then added Trump’s quote “I can’t imagine it’s a big deal” alongside headlines about Puerto Ricans mobilizing against him in North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona — all key battleground states.
The former president may have a slight reprieve from the scandal in the form of President Joe Biden being accused of calling Trump supporters “garbage”.
The White House and president have said that the comments were misconstrued and the reference was to the comedian’s remarks and not to whom he had performed them. Nevertheless, the Trump campaign pounced and attacked the Harris campaign with the remarks.